Winter is the season I catch up on movie watching. I try to watch at least one a week. Some years I don’t do well, and in times like last year, I end the winter with watching only one or two movies.

There were years that passed when I didn’t see any movies. Spring, summer and fall are just too busy to watch movies—unless something monumental, such as a Marvel movie—comes out in theatres. I’m just not a TV watcher, so I’ve missed many good—and some just for fun—movies over the past three decades.

Why do I force myself to watch movies now?

Disconnect

Movies remove me from reality. Although many enjoy this chaotic, messed up world that has become void of common sense, I often prefer to journey the path less travelled, less noisy, more personal.

Movies transport me to another time, another place and a more fantastic reality. It must be the fantasy gene in me that keeps me hoping that life can be more adventurous, more challenging and more magical than it is. I need the break from reality to recharge my batteries.

Inspiration

When I watch a good movie, it inspires me to imagine, to create and to write my own stories. I think about, ‘what if the character did this instead’ where would the story have gone? Sometimes a movie character will inspire a character and I will create a whole story around them.

Sometimes that inspiration is in the form of hope, and when I watch a movie that inspires hope, it fuels my own stories in which I, too, want to inspire hope. For without hope, all is lost.

Satisfaction

Going on adventures with characters satisfies my soul. I want to soar to uncharted lands, but I am grounded here…for now. Unlike a vegetarian pizza or a large Courtland apple that satisfies my belly, my soul is nourished by adventure, fed by wild rides and remarkable characters who overcome the impossible.

Confirmation

Like many writers, I write with a feeling that certain things cannot be gained unless earned on the journey. If I’m writing a love story—even if it is not the main focus—the two characters must work to achieve the love they desire.

If two characters fall instantly in love and it is not challenged and their relationship is achieved too easily and without loss, is it worth it? Is it good writing and good story telling? Will it impress readers? Will it endure throughout time, throughout a series?

And do the characters deserve the love, the dedication received from their partners?

This is why I torture my characters, and it is why Bronwyn Darrow and Alaura of Niamh do not become a couple by the end of the first Castle Keepers series book, Shadows in the Stone. It often appears as if they won’t come together in the second book, Scattered Stones, either. It is why Isla and Liam were torn apart in the first book and do not connect in the second book. Perhaps they won’t even connect in the third book, Revelation Stones (the end is not yet written). It doesn’t mean they don’t think of each other; it means only they have not found each other.

But know when they do, their love will be a hard-fought battle, worthy to be read and celebrated.

This is a series I refused to watch when it began—I disliked Johnny Depp because of 21 Jump Streetand Edward Scissorhands—but a friend convinced me I’d like it. So I tried it. And the adventurous spirit it invoked made me a fan. The movies also had that dry humour I love.

So when I watched Dead Men Tell No Tales, I already knew the story behind Elizabeth Swan and William Turner. I knew it was a deep love, one won, one lost, one earned, one forbidden by the curse of the sea. So while this movie didn’t impress me because of all the fancy footwork (CGI) during battles, the ending drove home the sentiment of the first three movies: the love between Elizabeth and Will.

The love between their son Henry and Barbossa’s daughter Carina was young, unchallenged and just coming into blossom. It could easily change the next day or the next week or fall in the first real challenge. Nothing predicted it would endure. They had taken only the first step in earning a great love.

But Henry’s parents were another matter. When I saw Elizabeth run towards Will, all the emotions created by their history emerged. Their love was an earned one, a pure one, one that had endured time and hardships.

And that’s the kind of feeling I want to generate in readers with the characters who fall in love in my stories.

How About You?

Did you want Dead Men Tell No Tales? If you’ve watched the other movies in the series, did you get the same knowing, familiar feeling at the end when Elizabeth and Will reunited?

Didn’t watch this series? Have you felt this enduring love in other series? I know single movies can have the power to generate this feeling, but building and maintaining this feeling over several movies is a challenge.

With Elizabeth and Will, none of their history was shared in the movie and not a word was said between them but at the end, viewers knew the instant they saw them together the challenges they had overcome to be together.

I don’t care for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, but I certainly understand what you mean when a love isn’t true unless it’s tested. When I feel the need, I watch “Ladyhawke”, it’s not perfect, but something about it always grabs me, and keeps me watching.

I haven’t seen or heard of this movie before. I made a note to check for it. It’s not on NetFlix, I just looked, but I did watch the trailer on YouTube. It looks good.

I was completely convinced “Pirates of the Caribbean” was not for me. I didn’t start watching it until the third movie came out. The first was the best, hands down. I’m not saying these movies are great. I enjoy them for their silliness, I suppose. I love dry humour.

I just watched the trailer for “Mirror Mirror” (it was the only Snow White film of 2011 I found), and it looks to be on the light-hearted, funny side. Julia Roberts looks like a great queen, in spite of what I know about the queen. I will watch it if I get the chance.

I have fallen behind though in the paperback form. Life has been quite chaotic the past several months, and other things have taken priority. I had it ready to go, but the formatting with CreateSpace caused major issues. So now I’m formatting it from scratch with InDesign. It is one project I hope to finish up this winter.

Great to see you here, Diane. I haven’t watched many movies the last couple of years but we just watched Snow White, filmed in 2011. It was actually pretty good and kept you guessing up to the end who the big bad wolf was. I am looking forward to Scattered Stones. Do you have an idea when it will be published? Happy writing in 2018!

Book 2 in the Castle Keepers Fantasy Series: Bronwyn Darrow is desperate to rescue his daughter Isla from Blackvale Castle. For five long years, he’s travelled Ath-o’Lea searching for her, but the formidable castle remains elusive. He’s surrendered his coveted sergeant’s position at Aruam Castle, but he’s willing to sacrifice everything—even his honour—to bring Isla home. If he fails, his innocent little girl will face a lifetime of slavery.